Trauma and emotional moments were high on the agenda for The Murder Workers

TV review: The Murder Workers highlighted the difficulties of being a homicide case worker.

‘As lovely as you are, I wish I’d never met you.’ This was the mum of teenage boy Connor to her homicide case worker, Alli. ‘I don’t want this. I don’t want this world we’ve been introduced to.’

It was just one of many searing emotional flashpoints in The Murder Workers (C4). Did you even know there were homicide case workers? We’re familiar enough with the police providing family liaison officers during investigations – most recently, the bloke who ate all the biscuits in Broadchurch – but this was something else entirely.

There are people whose specific job is to try to ease the pain of families and friends who have suffered the trauma of having a loved one killed. They have to be the practical, sensible ones.

When the immediate shock of the murder has passed and the trial is over, it’s down to the likes of Alli, Carol and Dave to try to get them through the real trial: getting their lives back together. Crucial to this is thinking about the detail: in one case Alli agreed to have a victim’s bank letters sent to her, to spare the relative the agony of seeing the name on an envelope.

Alli took a soft approach, Carol was more stuff and nonsense: ‘It’s horrible to see someone pour their heart out… you’ve just got to get on with it.’ But their sensitivity was impressive as it became clear their job involved an emotion-draining mix of counsellor, friend, and legal and financial adviser. One of the meanest consequences of murder is that it is estimated to cost victims an average of £37,000. Where’s the justice there?

You’d think the constant exposure to continual grief would drain you of compassion but that didn’t appear to be the case. We never really got to grips with why people are drawn to the job but it takes a special kind of resolve to be shown family pictures by a sweet little girl whose dad had killed her mum – she’d blanked out his face – without allowing anger or emotion to cloud their judgment. I doubt I’d be up to the job.